Tenten Appreciation Month Week Two: 67
by needdl
Summary: In which Tenten experiences the trial of preparing dinner in a house of unhelpful morons.


Tenten was in a very sour mood.

She had asked Lee nearly half a dozen times now to take the stupid trash out and get a new bag, but he was apparently right in the middle of these squat sets, please Tenten could you just wait for a minute for him to finish, quitting is for the weak-hearted and unyouthful.

"A minute" is what he said, anyway. They evidently had two _very_ different ideas as to how long a minute was, because it had been a good half hour now and the _fucking_ trash was still full.

She stalked over to the room where Lee was working out, fuming. She was _actually_ going to kill him this time. No ifs, buts, or maybes about it. One quick cut behind his ear with her knife. Neji would help her scrub the blood out of the carpet, probably.

Tenten slammed the door open, glowering menacingly. Lee jerked his head up to beam at her from where he dangled from his pull-up bar. "Tenten! You look just as lovely upside-down!" A blatant lie, seeing as her face had gone splotchy with burgundy rage.

"You!" She brandished her knife at him. "You said that you had _one more_ setof _squats_ to do! What the hell are you doing?"

"Pull ups! I must keep my abs crunchy!"

" _Crunchy_? What kind of description is that?"

"You know, firm! Unyielding!"

"Just say that, then!"

They probably could have kept up their very intelligent and highly stimulating conversation, but in that moment the door opened. Tenten froze, because _oh my god is that Gai why is he so early dinner is not nearly ready_ but Neji's voice called softly through the house, "I'm back."

"OH! MY BABY!" Tenten sprinted towards the door, Lee forgotten behind her. "Is he okay? What'd Kiba say? Oh my god, is he dying? He's dying, isn't he? He's dying and there's nothing I can do, oh god-"

She vaulted around the corner, prepared for the worst. Neji was straightening up from where he had placed his bags down on the ground. He raised a sardonic brow at her. "Are you planning on stabbing me?"

She blinked at him, thrown. "What?"

"You seem well-prepared for it," he replied, nodding at her hand. She was still clutching her knife, white-knuckled in apprehension. Oh.

Recovering quickly, she shouted, "You're avoiding the question! IS MY BABY ALL RIGHT, NEJI."

He rolled his eyes and turned to hang up his coat. "Of course he is, Tenten. It was just a check-up."

"Oh thank god." She knelt down next to the carrier, crooning "Hi sweetie! How are you? I'm so sorry you had to go to the vet without me!" Riceball blinked peacefully at her, his paws tucked under his chest. After a moment, he _mrowed_ politely.

"Kiba did say he was slightly overweight," Neji commented, hanging his coat on the rack. "Sixty-seventh percentile, I believe."

Tenten harrumphed, fingers wiggling at her cat through the carrier. "Skinny cats are pointless and Kiba can rot."

"Touching. Be sure to pass that along to him." She rolled her eyes at the comment and ignored him, enamored with Riceball's thoughtful licking of her fingers.

"You want to come out? Here, Neji, bring the knife back." She impatiently flopped her hand in his direction.

He scowled at her. "Why."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaase?"

He let out a long-suffering sigh before prying the knife from her fingers and padding further into the house. She swiftly turned her attention back to her beloved squishy furball.

"How are you feeling, little man?" _Mrow._ "Oh, that's good. You aren't traumatized for life, are you?" _Mrrt._ "I'm glad." She unzipped the front of the kitty carrier, and Riceball obligingly walked out. He stretched and scratched, before pressing his head against her hands. "Aw, I missed you too."

"I was gone too, you know. Aren't you going to profess the same to me?"

She tilted her head up to grin at Neji, her hands still scratching the cat's chin. "Would you like me to?"

He smiled at her, in the softly hesitant way that she was still getting used to, the one that had been giving her butterflies. "You know how much I like chin scratches."

She laughed out loud then, and stood up to face him. "Alright, then." She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his jaw. "I missed you."

"Hm. Clingy." His breath ghosted over her mouth. "I was only gone a few hours."

Her retort was muffled as he pressed his lips to hers in a chaste kiss. She smiled slightly, just a small curl of her lips, and slid her hands from his shoulders to comb softly through his hair.

Riceball brushed past their ankles as he walked towards a sunny window, and they pulled apart. She smiled up at Neji. "Thanks for taking him to the vet for me, by the way."

His hand on her ribcage squeezed absently. "You're welcome."

They split apart for real then, with a few feet of space between them. Neji went to gather up the groceries still by the door, and Tenten returned to the kitchen in a much better mood than she had left it last time. Her knife had been placed neatly next to the vegetables she had been cutting up.

The trash was still full.

"LEE!"


End file.
